There are plenty of examples where despite every obstacle put in our way by government the Conservative administration on Medway Council has provided real improvements in Medway.
Let‘s take public transport as a shining example of politicians finding the money to introduce and finance a scheme that would benefit all.
Thus the 20p concessionary bus fare scheme introduced by the Conservatives a couple of years ago has proven popular with users, and has begun to help in a modest way to ease congestion on our roads.
This year in the Conservative budget we decided to extend the scheme. In order to bring parity to the scheme across Medway we have widened it to include men over 60.
The scheme is now available to more people than ever before, and again increased uptake has the potential to provide a real public transport alternative to those who want to use it.
In terms of congestion it was obvious to us that the critical school-run time in the morning — when children and parents are struggling to reach the schools at the same time as many people are rushing to their place of work — needed looking at.
We had the choice of rushing ahead with extending the full scheme to school children, or introducing a pilot scheme in order to iron out any particular problems that might come through. There may well be problems that are different to the scheme already running, and it will be wise to proceed in an orderly manner.
The old saying of 'More than one way to skin a cat' can be very true. That is why we have allocated the money to run a second pilot scheme pivoting around the American-style yellow school bus.
This innovative scheme is more than just transport to school. The buses will be manned and will therefore offer a supervisory function as well, helping to alleviate truancy and also fulfilling a community safety function.
Community safety is increasingly important in Medway, and this scheme provides another step forward.
These two pilot schemes, which the Conservative administration sees as vital to the continued development of public transport options in Medway were not supported by either Labour or the LibDems. Once again it falls to the Conservatives to drive forward improvements in Medway unaided by other politicians.